Dr. Phil Takes a Stand Against Bullying
More than 160,000 children miss school every day because they are scared of being bullied, according to the National Education Association.
Bullying is a national problem, often with tragic results. But Dr. Phil McGraw, host of the popular show "Dr. Phil," has begun a fight against this behavior, delving into the topic several times on his show and even traveled to Washington, D.C. in June to bring the topic to the fore. While in the nation's capital, he spoke in front of the Subcommittee on Healthy Families about the prevalence of bullying and the serious public health and safety risks associated with cyberbullying.
On "The Early Show" Thursday, Dr. Phil appeared on the broadcast to talk about what he's now calling a childhood epidemic.
Dr. Phil Takes Up Cyber-Bullying Fight
Dr. Phil explained, "I said nine years ago when I started the 'Dr. Phil' show one of the things we would focus on are the silent epidemics in America. I'm trying to make this not silent. I want us to tune in and know what's going on here."
Co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez remarked, "These keyboards bullies have the benefit of hiding behind their computers and it's so easy for them to target vulnerable people."
"There is no empathy involved here," McGraw replied. "When you are not having to look at your victim, when you don't see the pain in their face, when you don't see their eyes, then it's so much easier for you to say cruel things. And crueler things are being said than would be said person to person. And, you know, the thing that I'm worried about, Maggie, is these bullies have parents. Where are the parents of these bullies? How do they not know what their child is doing either on the school bus, at school, on the keyboard, wherever it may be?"
In a recent show, Dr. Phil apologized to children.
He said, "On behalf of all the adults that seem to be running this society, I am so sorry. I just -- I am so sorry that this is going on in this society. I'm so sorry that gay is a slur."
On "The Early Show" Dr. Phil said, "I just hate for (gay children) to think that nobody cares, that all the adults in this world that are not doing anything don't care. … It sends a message and these kids, think, look adults don't get it. They don't care. But that's not true, we do get it and we do care and we need to let them do that and do something about this."
But how do you prevent tragedies like Tyler Clementi's suicide after allegedly being videotaped by Rutgers classmates from happening?
Lawyers: Nobody Saw Tyler Clementi Video
To Dr. Phil, prevention starts with education.
"I'm sure that people don't think -- because I've talked to a lot of bullies that have now grown up -- and they say, you know, when I was doing that, I had no idea the impact that it had. I was not aware of the pain it was causing. Well, let's make them aware now. Let's teach these kids that words are powerful and that, when you say things that cut into someone, it changes who they are. You say it, then they go home and repeat it to themselves a thousand times. And it changes their personality. It changes their future. It changes the way they raise their kids when they grow up."
He added, "If we turn a bright light on over this maybe parents will have a sit-down with their kids and say, 'I want to talk to you about bullying. Are you being bullied and are you a bully?' Let's have those conversations -- not a conversation -- but a dialogue they need to have."
For parenting tips from Dr. Phil on the bullying warning signs and what you should do if you think your child is being bullied, click on the video below.
Copyright 2010 CBS. All rights reserved. Bullying is a national problem, often with tragic results. But Dr. Phil McGraw, host of the popular show "Dr. Phil," has begun a fight against this behavior, delving into the topic several times on his show and even traveled to Washington, D.C. in June to bring the topic to the fore. While in the nation's capital, he spoke in front of the Subcommittee on Healthy Families about the prevalence of bullying and the serious public health and safety risks associated with cyberbullying.
On "The Early Show" Thursday, Dr. Phil appeared on the broadcast to talk about what he's now calling a childhood epidemic.
Dr. Phil Takes Up Cyber-Bullying Fight
Dr. Phil explained, "I said nine years ago when I started the 'Dr. Phil' show one of the things we would focus on are the silent epidemics in America. I'm trying to make this not silent. I want us to tune in and know what's going on here."
Co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez remarked, "These keyboards bullies have the benefit of hiding behind their computers and it's so easy for them to target vulnerable people."
"There is no empathy involved here," McGraw replied. "When you are not having to look at your victim, when you don't see the pain in their face, when you don't see their eyes, then it's so much easier for you to say cruel things. And crueler things are being said than would be said person to person. And, you know, the thing that I'm worried about, Maggie, is these bullies have parents. Where are the parents of these bullies? How do they not know what their child is doing either on the school bus, at school, on the keyboard, wherever it may be?"
In a recent show, Dr. Phil apologized to children.
He said, "On behalf of all the adults that seem to be running this society, I am so sorry. I just -- I am so sorry that this is going on in this society. I'm so sorry that gay is a slur."
On "The Early Show" Dr. Phil said, "I just hate for (gay children) to think that nobody cares, that all the adults in this world that are not doing anything don't care. … It sends a message and these kids, think, look adults don't get it. They don't care. But that's not true, we do get it and we do care and we need to let them do that and do something about this."
But how do you prevent tragedies like Tyler Clementi's suicide after allegedly being videotaped by Rutgers classmates from happening?
Lawyers: Nobody Saw Tyler Clementi Video
To Dr. Phil, prevention starts with education.
"I'm sure that people don't think -- because I've talked to a lot of bullies that have now grown up -- and they say, you know, when I was doing that, I had no idea the impact that it had. I was not aware of the pain it was causing. Well, let's make them aware now. Let's teach these kids that words are powerful and that, when you say things that cut into someone, it changes who they are. You say it, then they go home and repeat it to themselves a thousand times. And it changes their personality. It changes their future. It changes the way they raise their kids when they grow up."
He added, "If we turn a bright light on over this maybe parents will have a sit-down with their kids and say, 'I want to talk to you about bullying. Are you being bullied and are you a bully?' Let's have those conversations -- not a conversation -- but a dialogue they need to have."
For parenting tips from Dr. Phil on the bullying warning signs and what you should do if you think your child is being bullied, click on the video below.
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Bullying can be seen as a form of social Darwinism, as a means of toughening up adolescents for adulthood, sort of a rite of passage. It's not condoning this behavior to say that it always has and always will exist. It's how we choose to deal with it that's at issue. It's not like bullying is typically carried out in front of the teachers, so proof and context are always at issue.
Effective group therapy that deals with the multiplicity of teenage topics may be a better approach. This can be either informal or formal, but should always include parents in the schools. Too often, schools are simply a babysitting dumping ground and mandating parental involvement in cases where serious behavioral problems are observed may be the only way to correct them.
Paul,
Author of "The Tale of Aynil the Traveler" and the "Tales of Fairies" book series. www.talesoffairies.com
'Gay' is a universally accepted put-down, because there's nothing a kid would more rather not be than gay. Even kitchen appliances and cars get called "so gay" if they malfunction. All this abuse heaped upon a harmless minority who never did anything bad to their attackers that could possibly justify vilification, violence and at the worst, murder in the first degree as befell 21yo Matthew Shepard.
The worst bullies of them all are oftentimes gay kids who do not fit the stereotype and know too well that if they lie and pretend to be straight, are violent, homophobic, then they will be accepted and survive. You might be surprised how many men have been convicted of homophobic violence when the whole time they were gay themselves. A fully secure straight person in my experience is far less likely to be concerned about what gay boys are doing, because they're too busy chasing females. I am gay myself but I was never bullied at school for it nor rejected by my family, and most of my friends are straight. They manifest no need to abuse or bash me. We know what we are and don't try to change each other.
In a school and in some communities it's all very different. Being gay is lower than anything else bad that you can possibly be. You'd get more respect if you were a gun runner. If you're bullied for being black however, you can always go home to your black mum and dad and they will be on your side. But if you're gay, you don't have a gay mum and dad to go home to, and more often than not, you would live in a home that is hostile to your homosexuality, and would beat the bejesus out of you if they found out. So you lie to them too. You *do not* tell them about your homophobic classmates bullying you for being gay so as to invite further aggression against you at home.
Blaming a victim for being bullied or killed is no different to blaming a female for being raped. Most gay kids are out on their own. They have no support from their peers at school who hate them for being gay, some teachers who are homophobic may not intervene because they privately feel the kid deserves everything he gets for being gay, their parents will kick them out on the street, or try to beat the crap out of them until they stop saying they're gay. And the Church? Well there lies the basic reason all this came about - they teach that gay is evil, and you're possessed by the devil if you're gay. Your only salvation lies in marrying a total stranger you have not the slightest sexual interest in, to please a god that doesn't even resemble the teachings of Jesus Christ, so you can spend eternity in the company of a bunch of homophobic, bible bashing bigots. Speaking for myself, I would prefer Hell to that.
That in a nutshell is why so often gay kids don't stand up for themselves, because they are hopelessly outnumbered by bullies, often twice their size and much older. Even the military know better than to invade a country of superior might. Many of the kids who die by their own hand are only 13 or 14, and often fit the stereotype outlined above. They're not naturally violent and so they perish. Of course once they've killed themselves, the problem has gone away, the bullies remain at the school high-fiving each other as heroes, like they did after 15yo Billy Lucas hanged himself in his granny's barn. Not content with that, they went on to post messages of hate on his memorial Facebook page, the same as they have been doing to Brandon Bitner.
That took courage for this 14yo kid to walk in front of a truck, but no doubt that has changed the driver's life forever, unless of course he was a homophobe in which case he will be still celebrating at having gotten away with having rolled a ****** with no legal consequences.
When no-one loves you, and you have no hope, no future, why would you not kill yourself?
If we are really serious about effectuating change, the only path is through education authorities stopping being so frightened to say the word "gay", running serious anti-homphobia programmes in schools with real live witnesses, such as the parents of kids who died by their own hand, and sane gay people who can articulate and win people over. This must be coupled with rigorous prosecution of offenders, and professionally based counselling. This is how racism is being slowly tackled.
Bullying is not a crime, but it should be.
Language evolves constantly. You declare that you wish to freeze the meaning of the word "Gay" so as to extinguish its modern connotation with "Homosexual". However I'll bet my bottom dollar that you wouldn't want to use exclusively scientific sounding terms for everything else. For example the word "Guy" instead of "Male person". Many words have multiple colloquial meanings, such as "Neat", "Bread", "Super", "Grand". The wee word "Gay" for a while was the one and only positive colloquialism for "Homosexual", yet you don't even want us to have that.
Every other word is abusive and highly offensive, so much so that this site blanks it out as you can see from my post above. If you had wanted to stifle the development of language four hundred years ago, as you do now, we'd all still be speaking like Shakespeare.
Anyway insofar as your evident repugnance towards my homosexuality is concerned, you've got your wish now, because "Gay itself has now become a synonym for "Bad".
Derek Williams
If he's accidentally on the right side, you can be sure there's money involved.
You contradict yourself. On the one hand, you say Dr Phil will show anything despicable for money, then you say he won't if he is really against it.
You made no point at all.
Talk about co-dependent relationships watch the typical "Doctor" of psychology with his "mark",, uh..patient.
The typical psychologist/patient relationship tends to be one of the biggest ego-jurkoffs by any of the so called health professions. Voodoo anyone? It only works if you believe. Snicker